Video: The Taliban leadership election process

posted at 12:57 pm on August 8, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

If anyone wondered why the death of Baitullah Mehsud would make our job easier in Afghanistan, the Taliban may have provided an example. When leaders of violent movements suddenly die without succession plans, the people below them usually rely on the methods they know best to determine who gets to be the next supreme leader. So far, this report is unconfirmed … but it’s still instructive:

This is why the US has stepped up its campaign to target Taliban leadership with drone-based attacks — a decision for which Barack Obama should get credit, as it goes against his stated positions during the presidential campaign. The increasing success of these attacks sows paranoia and distrust among the terrorists as they have to start wondering how we’re getting our intel, and the sudden removal of leadership creates a vacuum in which factions form and fight amongst themselves. Rarely is that so explicit and specific as reported by NBC here, but schisms and splits serve our interests even when it doesn’t result in duels fatal to both leaders.

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If it serves to diminish their numbers, let’s do more of it and more often. Decapitate a snake, the rest will writhe around for a while…but will die.

Back when we first engaged the Taliban and AQ, we rarely released information on who we had captured or killed. Let the little bit of doubt grow on their side. Releasing information sourced to “unidentified AQ source” at times worked well to spread that doubt within.

Simple question. Zawahiri’s recent call to hold talks with the Obama Administration about a truce…a sign that AQ is winning or a sign that they see their days are numbered?

Hey, Taliban! I hope your election process lasts a good long time! Choose the best of your kind and let us know who won, would you? I assure, we would love to know and have a 500lb present to celebrate his victory.

Wow….thanks Hot Air Board peeps. Thanks to many of you guys, we have been approached to do several cool conservative video projects.

Silent no more…. It was this latest one that got the attention

Thanks again and God Bless Hot Air

deedtrader on August 8, 2009 at 1:05 PM

The contrast between Milton Friedman as the Nobel Prize Winner in Economics and his successor Paul Krugman is the perfect illumination of an organization that has sufficiently lost its way to have honored Al Gore.

Great job, deedtrader, and keep it up. FWIW, I think that the sound balance of that ominous music is perfect.

You could wipe out every single Taliban but you haven’t even begun to destroy the ideology which is at the heart of the problem and is at war with us. This is akin to killing the “radical” Nazis with some help from “moderate” Nazis, but Nazism itself is spared and marches on to fulfill its fascist totalitarian agenda.

The Pakistani’s are almost as barbaric as the Taliban but they help us because they know the US will obliterate their country. Don’t forget their extensive terror structure used to kill Indians and Kashmiris.

Muslims are in a perpetual/endless war with all non-muslims until one side conquers the other. We’re wasting time, resources and lives on a problem that was misdiagnosed to begin with, due to political correctness.

How about bombing Pakistan’s madrassas which incite muslims to hate and wage war against Americans, Jews, Indians and all non-muslims? My point is that we’re at war with Islam, not some ‘radicals’. Eliminate this death cult and only then will you end Islamic terrorism.

Muslims are in a perpetual/endless war with all non-muslims until one side conquers the other. We’re wasting time, resources and lives on a problem that was misdiagnosed to begin with, due to political correctness.

Do you really think that a misunderstanding of Islam is going to help anyone?

Do you really think that a misunderstanding of Islam is going to help anyone?

That was my point we’re misunderstanding Islam, which is why we’re picking off a few crazies of this death cult. Anyone that’s studied Islam knows that its goal is the conquest of every ‘infidel’ nation until it rules the world.

Not only should we be destroying the Taliban but defeating the ideology as well (as we did with Nazism). We need to come out and say that Islam is incompatible with freedom and democracy and work to eliminate it.

Some quotes from their genocide manual the Quran:

Sura 8:12 – I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

Qur’an 9:5 – Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.

Qur’an 8:39 – So, fight them till all opposition ends and the only religion is Islam.

You could wipe out every single Taliban but you haven’t even begun to destroy the ideology which is at the heart of the problem and is at war with us. … [snip] …
How about bombing Pakistan’s madrassas which incite muslims to hate and wage war against Americans, Jews, Indians and all non-muslims? My point is that we’re at war with Islam, not some ‘radicals’. Eliminate this death cult and only then will you end Islamic terrorism.

There are at least three parts to the conflict. One part must be fought militarily by killing the violent enemy and this much we are doing.

Part two is to deny Islam resources (halting Muslim immigration to the west and cutting off oil funds, not granting law changes that would further protect Islam and make it harder to uproot).

However this is an ideological conflict and it can only be won with part 3 which is changing minds so that Islam no longer has a home in people’s heads. This is requires education and personal relationships.

The free world hasn’t really even started parts two and three yet because most of our own dear ‘leaders’ are so handicapped by their own ideological fluffy thinking that they still haven’t begun to understand Islam or the nature of the conflict.

Agreed YiZhangZhe, that’s pretty much how I envision it. I should’ve elaborated on that so people didn’t get the impression I advocate nuking the entire muslim world.

Our goal should be the complete elimination of Islam since it cannot be reformed, they tried for centuries and failed. It can be done without harming a single muslim-but obviously it won’t be that easy and we’ll have to wipe out the violent extremists.

For the rest of the muslims, western style democracy/freedom should be imposed on their countries and their laws immediately changed, with the threat of war/annihilation if they refuse. This is somewhat how Islam has conquered many countries.

It could take a long time to get leaders in power in the West who would have the resolve and clarity (understanding of Islam) to go through with something like this so I won’t hold my breath.

Chances are most westerners will continue to stick their head in the sand and pretend Islam is no threat aside from ‘radicals’ until a few million are killed in a nuke or biological attack or say a European country get muslims in power who go on to genocide non-muslims and Islamify the state.

God help us if some (muslim) nation manages to detonate an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) over the US and sends the entire country back to the stone age. No one is taking the war we’re in seriously enough-its just a matter of time till some event occurs on a larger scale that 9/11 to shock us back into reality.

Our goal should be the complete elimination of Islam since it cannot be reformed, they tried for centuries and failed. It can be done without harming a single muslim-but obviously it won’t be that easy and we’ll have to wipe out the violent extremists.

Trying to eliminating islam would be like trying to eliminate stupid thoughts. They will never be eliminated but people could be trained to recognise them and not to take them seriously.

For the rest of the muslims, western style democracy/freedom should be imposed on their countries and their laws immediately changed, with the threat of war/annihilation if they refuse. This is somewhat how Islam has conquered many countries.

It wouldn’t work for several reasons. First because overtly ‘forcing’ people to leave Islam will probably cause more people to adopt it. The Muslims in the UK have become more noticably more assertive about their identity after the 7/7/2005 transport bombs because they felt they needed to take a stand, perhaps because they felt under pressure.

Second, because there are plenty of people in the west (Muslims and others) who would cause a rumpus and frustrate the attempt.

Third, because western democracies lead naturally to incompetence and tyranny. The present style of democracy is exactly what has got us to the point where we have fluffy-thinking socialists and ‘liberals’ dominating the political conversations and occupying most of the key positions and inviting Muslims into the west. Democracy worked, for a while, in the UK and USA because of the puritan foundations of both nations and thereofre the prevaling ideology that flavoured political conversations was basically wholesome. These days those conversations are flavoured by the very unwholesome ideas of ‘progressive-liberals’ and socialists.

Western-style democracy isn’t up to the job and is itself in need of significant reform.

It could take a long time to get leaders in power in the West who would have the resolve and clarity (understanding of Islam) to go through with something like this so I won’t hold my breath.

A person who understands islam will be a person who understands truth, reason and integrity and so on, and therefore will be able to recognise and understand the lies, deceit and irrationality of Islam. If our schools would start teaching logic and reasoning and the methods of historical investigation then there would be a larger pool of people with the right background. Presently however they are all schooled in ‘economics’ and social theory and other stuff that is not exactly worthless but which is secondary to truth and reason. They lack the basic intellectual tools to deal with the problems.

Chances are most westerners will continue to stick their head in the sand and pretend Islam is no threat aside from ‘radicals’ until a few million are killed in a nuke or biological attack or say a European country get muslims in power who go on to genocide non-muslims and Islamify the state.

I partially disagree. I think a very significant proportion of westerners already understand that islam is a major problem. However the political system and its actors live in its/their own bubble with its own momentum. Furthermore the political classes are blinded by their own ideologies, some of which are more or less just as destructive as islam.

God help us if some (muslim) nation manages to detonate an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) over the US and sends the entire country back to the stone age. No one is taking the war we’re in seriously enough-its just a matter of time till some event occurs on a larger scale that 9/11 to shock us back into reality.

thinkagain on August 8, 2009 at 7:05 PM

The problem with a major violent attack as you describe is that the western leadership will spend days reciting platitudes about how the acts is the work of a few ‘fanatics’ who have misrepresented islam. Their own ideaology will cause them to support islam even as they attempt to attack the fanatics … this, after all, is exactly what has happened in response to the attacks in the USA, Spain and UK. The western nations are now actively supporting islam in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and are also protecting the Muslims resident in the west.

The number one enemy facing the western nations is not, in my opinion, islam. Rather it is the anti-intellectual ideologies of lazy people politicians and business people, and of a lot of ‘science’ and especially of the ‘progressive’ groups who dominate political activism. Many of these people are, I presume, well meaning concerned-citizens but the policies they propose are impractical and lack a real understanding of human nature. Consequently their energetic attempts to purify the earth and all who live in it are actually undermining they foundation on which we all stand, sawing off the branch on which we sit.

Their ‘progressive, enlightened’ thinking would let cancer cells flourish because they value ‘diversity’ over health. They would attempt to reason with a rabid dog because they abhor violence. They would welcome evil rather than be ‘intolerant’ (the greatest sin in their book). Basically they prefer to suicidally pursue a society that is ideologically pure rather than one that will function reasonably well and survive.

Education is needed not so much to show Muslims the deceitfulness and evil nature of islam but to stop westerners being seduced by lazy thinking and the platitudes of the ‘progressives’. If we can heal the sickness in our own societies then we will be able to resist islam. We need to teach reasoning and logic and the tools of enqiry so that people can discern truth from error.

The success and greater virtue of our societies is already a challenge for some muslims … (they already ask themselves ‘why are the imperfect infidel nations so much more prosperous and righteous than those that follow mohammed?’). If we can cleanse our own house islam will substantially collapse of its own accord.

Really, considering the way these ‘leaders’ die (shootouts, car bombs, gravity bombs, cruise missile strikes, snipers, etc.), I really don’t think I’d be so hot to get in the big chair and take command. In fact, it’s probably not true these guys gunned each other down over crap like: “I’m taking command“, “no, I’m taking command”. It was probably more like: “You’re taking command,” “no, you’re taking command”.

Trying to eliminating islam would be like trying to eliminate stupid thoughts. They will never be eliminated but people could be trained to recognise them and not to take them seriously.

Speaking hypothetically, if Islam was outlawed in every country and every muslims was eliminated or left Islam then this ideology would disappear like other failed cults and religions before it. At least it could be greatly diminished to the point where it no real threat like Nazism today.

It wouldn’t work for several reasons. First because overtly ‘forcing’ people to leave Islam will probably cause more people to adopt it….who would cause a rumpus and frustrate the attempt.

Sooner or later we’ll all realize we have no choice, since Islam cannot tolerate equality with other ideologies, it always seeks to dominate. By outright banning Islam, it’ll separate the true moderates (who’ll simply accept it) from the radicals who’ll likely fight to the death to prevent Islam’s elimination. Those are the people we want to be rid of anyway-this is a war after all.

Third, because western democracies lead naturally to incompetence and tyranny.

You articulated really well the same frustration and anger I have towards liberals. There’s a few points I agree on with them like being pro-choice, but most of their views are wrongheaded and very dangerous.

If we had executed this war properly, people like Rosie O’Donnell would be in jail for sedition and supporting the enemy. We’ve gotten too lax as a society and some of the great American principles have been very water-downed or dispensed with, thanks to the progressives as you mentioned.

A person who understands islam will be a person who understands truth, reason and integrity and so on, and therefore will be able to recognise and understand the lies, deceit and irrationality of Islam.

Agreed our education system and media has failed us, largely because they are dominated by leftists/liberals-many of whom tend to be anti-American due to their Marxist brainwashing.

While educating our fellow infidels on Islam is imperative and will prove useful, it’d make little difference on muslims. Most of them have decided to support their fascist totalitarian cult and seek global domination.

The number one enemy facing the western nations is not, in my opinion, islam. Rather it is the anti-intellectual ideologies of lazy people politicians and business people, and of a lot of ’science’ and especially of the ‘progressive’ groups who dominate political activism.

I think you’ve definitely identified a serious failing in our society here. The trouble is that it won’t be repaired over-night, if ever and meanwhile the jihad cancer will continue in our midst.

The best thing to do is for our side who understand the threat we’re facing from Islam-which primarily tends to be conservatives, to take power and then keep the leftists down while we handle the problem ourselves. Much as Obama and his cronies are forcing their policies down our throats now. Conservatives have gotten too soft and wishy-washy, no doubt afflicted with the same malady as liberals.

The hardcore progressives will never join our side, so there’s no point wasting time on them. We need a Ronald Reagan type (who was hated by the left) to take them helm and do whatever is necessary to win the war against Islam. Personally I think Newt Gingrich could be that man.

A mass education campaign on Islam could help turn this war around. We need our own war propaganda against muslims. In order to defeat an enemy they need to be dehumanized and hated. We’ve gotten so politically correct that we’ve tried to excise such useful emotions meant for self-preservation.

One final point-we often try to separate the belief from the believers, I hear that argument even from the most ardent anti-Islamists. In practical terms that’s not possible since muslims consider these beliefs integral to their identity.

If we declare war against Islam, it is also against muslims-the carriers of this disease. We need to put our interests above theirs and begin by banning Islam and deporting muslims. Then we should assist other nations to eliminate Islam from their midst as well.

Here’s a couple of excellent lectures for anyone that wants to learn more on how to deal with Islam.

Sorry for the delay in responding. Two matters/topics/arguments you might like to consider:

(1) Have you read “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror” by Natan Sharansky? Not all of it is relevent but he does highlight how within certain communities everybody will, superficially, appear to be in agreement. However they agree only because they are afraid of the consequences of speaking out. His primary scenario was Soviet Russia but it applies elsewhere. The unanimous, ubiquitous opinion is neither unanimous or ubiquitous once the fear of revenge is removed. I am very sure that something similar exists in Islamic societies. I have met people who self-censored and there are testimonies on the web too.

(2) Islam is so socially destructive that it cannot sustain anything except a repressive society. Fifty countries in the world have populations that are 50% or more Muslim, none of them are great nations, most of them are at least somewhat repressive. Each of those countries might have pockets of greatness but their overall contribution to the world is small. The arab oil states, in particular, have contributed almost nothing even to their own success (they did not create the oil, find the oil, invent a use of the oil, design or create the infrastructure for its extraction, trading and use).

Already Muslims desire the lifestyle and objects that non-Islamic countries create. Muslims are leaving Islamic nations because they find life is better among the infidels but we then foolishly allow them to maintain their Islam. Thus their Islam, having already torn asunder the nation from which they emmigrated, is allowed to gain new energy from the new host society. Because of its inherent social destructiveness Islam is, practically speaking, a parasitical ideology that flourishes only when it has a strong host from which to suck life.

Considering both of these points together, I am inclined to think that Islam would diminish greatly of its own accord if the free world stopped supporting it (by paying petrodollars, by allowing muslims to be educated in the west, and by allowing Muslim migration to the free world) and especially if the the free world also cleansed itself. By doing both of these things the gap between the Islamic world and the civilised world would enlarge until the Islamic world imploded. Because nobody would have been forced to leave Islam it will be seen by Muslims that Islam (despite its promise of making a perfect society and of being a corrective message) is inferior even to the pagan Hindus. In fact the only comparably destructive ideology is atheistic communism and that might lead a good number of ‘muslims’ to conclude (correctly in my view) that islam is just as godless as the 20thC soviet ideology.